Dareth's Grand Adventure
by Silver0HAWK
Summary: Dareth, being Dareth, is entrusted by the ninja with one task. Get the cake. Bring it to the Bounty? How much could POSSIBLY go wrong? (One shot)


It had been months since Garmadon took over the city, months since Dareth had proudly stood amongst the vastly outnumbered members of the resistance.

It had taken some time, but his juice bar had finally been rebuilt. Apparently having a Colossus toe crash through your food could be bad for business. Who would have thought?

A simple man, Dareth was fine being on call and not a full time member... something the ninja were secretly happy about. However, that didn't mean they _weren't_ fond of the master of... eh... brown.

He was still included in quite a few activities, called when they needed an ear to the ground. Despite all this, no one had contacted him in months since the '_Garmadon's in jail; our city's saved_' celebration.

Dareth was busying himself scrubbing the counters with a rag when the phone rang. He jumped a mile, slinging the rag behind him.

"Hey!" Came the disgruntled huff of a non evil biker dude in a leather jacket. The rag was now floating in his smoothie. "Come _on_ man!"

"Ehehe." Dareth chuckled awkwardly. "I'll get you a new one... on the house."

He slipped into the back room and checked the phone ID. '_Jay the Spectacular'_

"Yes!" Dareth grinned, practically tossing his phone into the air.

"Ah woah!" He struggled to catch it, but the device bounced off his palm. "Oops! got it!!" Another awkward chuckle. "_Ahem_...Dareth speaking."

"_Dareth! We need your help! It's super important that you listen **very** carefully_!"

"You... _need_ me? This awesome! I mean..." Dareth cleared his throat and deepened his voice to a seemingly more heroic pitch. "No worries, Blue Ninja! The brown ninja is equipped for any mission! With my extensive Animal fighting skills, no one can stand to the mighty unsurpassed skills of _Grandmaster Dareth!"_

There was an audible sigh from the other end. "_Dareth. I need a cake."_

"A cake? I'm on it!"

"_Now it needs to be-"_

_I'm invited to a ninja party!? This is unbelievable! I finally climbed the ranks to their levels! They see me as one of them. I am... **a ninja**. Maybe they'll let me have a mech! Can they make it brown? Will have rockets and-__"You got it?"_

Dareth was shaken from his whirlwind of thoughts. "Oh yeah! Totally got it! You can count on me, blue ninja."

"_Okay. see at you there at twelve."_

"Wait where-"

**Beep.**

Dareth stared at the phone in his hand, suddenly realizing that he had no idea what the cake was for, or where the ninja planned to meet for this thing.

With a sigh, he replaced the device on the receiver and and rubbed his hands together. It was a puzzle. The ninja dealt with this stuff on a daily basis, right?

Quickly grabbing his brown Gi, Dareth changed and bolted for the door.

"Hey man, what about my drink?"

"Come back tomorrow! I'm on a mission for the ninja."

"The ninja? Eh cool! Good luck."

* * *

"I think I'll take... uh.." Dareth pointed at the cake with an ocean intricately frosted on the top. "Uh..." Then he moved over to the dog. "Are you sure you don't have any others?"

The baker behind the glass partition looked stumped. For an hour, he had been trying to help Dareth choose, and finally had the options whittled down to two.

"No."

"Are you sure!? This is an emergency!"

"Sir. What's the cake for?"

"I already _told_ you I don't know! The phone conversation wasn't very uh... clear."

The baker growled and dragged a hand down his face, topping it with an exaggerated eye roll for good measure.

"Have you tried... _calling_ them back?"

"No! Are you crazy! They already think I'm a dimwit!"

"_They're not the only ones."_ It was meant to be muttered under his breath, and thankfully Dareth didn't catch it.

"Look... everyone likes dogs... just... take the dog cake."

"Alright! How much!?"

"Two hundred."

"T-T-two... _hundred_?!" Dareth just gaped at the man. There was no way a sad little cake with a pathetic three legged dog was worth two hundred.

"Yes. Cost of labor and time... _especially time."_Dareth checked his watch. It was 11:07. He didn't have time for all of this! He didn't have time to go anywhere else.

"Fine fine! It's only the cost of my kidney." Dareth whimpered as he dropped the money on the counter.

* * *

It was life or death. He assumed that the ninja wanted him to meet them up at the Destiny's Bounty. If he was wrong- the world was gonna end.

His at least.

Of all the days for his little van to be in the shop. Wait, ninja could do this on foot, right? Totally. He saw the others vaulting across roof tops without a care in the world. Why was he complaining about a quick jog to the edge of town?

"Free donuts! Win to earn a dozen free donuts!"

Dareth skidded to a stop, eyes wide as he looked at the stand on the side of the road. His stomach grumbled heavily.

"No." He clutched the cake close to his chest. "I will _not_ fail the ninja."

And with that he went on his way.

A child's ear piercing screech was the next hurdle on his trip. The kid was standing with an empty cone, two scoops of strawberry ice cream melting on the pavement.

Would the others have stopped? Yes absolutely.

He wanted to buy her a new cone, but all he had left was one arm and one leg in terms of money.

"Here." He said, dropping the hood to his Gi in her hands.

She stared at it. "It's sweaty!"

"No, it's awesome! It belongs to the brown ninja-"

"You?"

"Yes. I stared down the overlord in that hood! I battled lord Garmadon-" _Actually he r__an like a chicken with his head cut off... but he was gonna omit that for pride's sake. _"And I saved Ninjago alongside the green ninja!"

The girl stared at the hood. "But I didn't see you..."

"I was _uh_..." Dareth rubbed his chin. "Um... Blending in? Yeah, I just... blend into the _wall_... in all those uh... Photos. Look kid. gotta run!"

As Dareth ran, he turned to look over his shoulder. "That'll be valuable one day! Just you wait!"

* * *

"_Hey! get back here!"_ An irate voice howled from a nearby alley way. Dareth saw a kid in a hoodie tearing away with a bright pink purse in his hands. He groaned. How did the ninja handle this?

He couldn't risk the cake getting damaged, so he set it down on a park bench next to the fountain.

The kid was already a solid fifty feet away, and Dareth's legs were fairly short... but that didn't stop him. The kid glanced over his shoulder, seeing Dareth charging towards him.

He ran under the shade of the store awnings, but this proved to be a bad choice. A deli-shop door swung open, right in time for Dareth to get a face full of plexiglass.

Floating stars danced in his vision as he fell backwards and hit the ground hard.

"Ah man! I am so- Dareth?"

Dareth giggled as he attempted to touch one of the stars floating in circles above his head.

"Ah nuts..."

"Should we call an ambulance?"

"Nah. He's got a hard head. Like Cole."

"Hey, I'm _right here_ flame brain!"

"Why else would I say it?"

Dareth groaned and rubbed his head, the daze wearing off.

"You okay, buddy?" Kai, elemental master of fire and the red ninja asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Just great... got the cake."

"What cake?" Cole asked.

Dareth pointed. "It's back this way." Running at full speed, the trio darted towards the park.

"Uh..." Cole crossed his arms with a quirked eyebrow. "Dareth... there's no cake... and if something happened to the cake-."

"He's pretty serious about his cake." Kai laughed, pushing the master of earth aside to cut his tirade off.. "I'm not surprised... he's been dodging it like a ghost all year... Cole, whatever happened to my body is a temple?"

"Ah, _forget_ that. I want cake!"

"Speaking of which, there it is!" Dareth pointed to a white box strapped to the back of a motorbike.

"Stop that bike!"

Of course, no one but the little old lady feeding the birds heard them; meaning they had to do it themselves.

Kai yanked his hood down, but before he could take off across the grass towards the road, Cole caught his shoulder and pointed to a sign.

_Stay Off The Grass_

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!"

* * *

The pizza delivery guy spent every day weaving through traffic and dropping steaming boxes of smelly goodness off at people's houses. The pay was crap, the tips were poor, but the job was fulfilling nonetheless.

Still, he had to say that finding a cake just sitting around was a nice grab... okay, so it probably belonged to someone.

He checked his reflecting mirrors again to merge lanes. He was coming up on a pretty busy intersection. That's when he noticed two of Ninjago's most devoted heroes chasing him down the sidewalk, closely followed by an out of breath person clad in tree bark brown. A new ninja?

"Hey stop!" The red one shouted. "You have our..."

Pizza guy was staring a bit too long, because he looked ahead to see a guy clutching a pink purse darting out in front of the bike. He hit the brakes and kidded sideways, pizza flying off and the cake box rolling.

"Cake..." Kai finished lamely. Cole helped the uninjured Pizza guy to his feet and checked on the purse thief... One set of hand cuffs later, and Cole was looking up to see a very distraught Dareth.

"Oh no!" The brown ninja cried. "No no no no no no no _no!_" He picked the box up and righted it. Opening the lid, he saw that the frosting had smeared all across the lid in blue and brown smudges.

"Okay..." Cole hesitated before he dared say anything... "I _think_ we can fix this."

Kai put a hand over his mouth thoughtfully, brow furrowed. "What even _was _it?"

* * *

"Where _are_ they?" Jay hissed angrily, pacing back and forth.

"Relax, Jay. I'm sure they're on the way."

"Relax? Nya, how am I supposed to throw a surprise party if half of the people throwing the party are missing!"

"It is logistically easy." Pixal spoke up from where she had been hanging a streamer up.

"Yeah yeah... I know. I just hope Zane can keep Lloyd occupied long enough for them to show up."

"I'm certain he will."

The door slammed open without much warning as Cole, Kai, and Dareth slipped in and shut it behind them.

"Where were _you_?"

"Sorry Jay." Kai gasped, bending at the waist to catch his breath. Dareth had slumped into a chair. "The cake got... uh... stolen."

"Oh right! The cake!" Jay apprehended the baked treat from Cole. He opened the lid.

"_What **is** this?" _Never had Dareth heard Jay sound so mortified. "Dareth, I wanted a green cake that said, Happy Birthday, Lloyd! Not a-a-a-"

"It's a dog." Kai supplied.

"More like a four legged monstrosity with glowing red eyes!"

"Those are balloons." Cole deadpanned.

"Yeah... I'm not seeing it. You're artistic talent needs some serious work!"

"Well excuse me, we did our _best_ all things considered!" Cole was peeved. Ever since Jay had taken control of planning Lloyd's surprise birthday party, the whip had been cracking nonstop. Jay's seriousness towards the entire event made Master Wu look like a tame cat.

"Well if ya hadn't left me in charge-"

"_Left_ you in charge? Come on Motor mouth, you _took_ control!"

"Did not!"

"Did too-"

"They're here!"

At Nya's cry, Jay panicked. "Hide!"

Pixal hopped off the ladder and draped a living room blanket over it as Jay shot one last murderous glare at Cole and flicked the lights out.

"I could have sworn I heard Jay and arguing a minute ago-" Lloyd's muffled voice drifted through the door.

"Are you certain?" So Zane had kept the secret well enough. Of course he had. It was rare for the nindroid to let something slip.

The door opened and Lloyd turned the Light on.

"**Surprise**!"

Dareth watched the green ninja, Ninjago's personal savior, jump about ten feet in the air with a startled yelp.

Zane backed out of the way with a chuckle.

"How did you guys manage to keep this a secret?"

"Well, Lloyd, _I_ was planning it." Jay replied smugly, tossing an arm around the younger ninja's shoulders.

"That's... what I mean."

"Well I'm not gonna spill my _own_ secret!"

"Happy birthday, Lloyd!" Dareth smiled, presenting the cake.

"Hey, Dareth. You shouldn't have!" Lloyd took the cake as Jay face palmed slightly.

"Like _really_ shouldn't have." Muttered the master of lighting under his breath. This got him harshly elbowed in the ribs.

"Oh Dareth, it's..."

Dareth looked hopeful as Lloyd furrowed his brow. Then recognition sparked in the green ninja's vibrantly green eyes as a smile stretched across his face.

"It's Ultra!"

Jay paused. Ultra dragon? Lloyd's old pet that had left for another realm years ago? Huh.

The ninja shared a look of surprise. Leave it to Lloyd to see a dragon in smeared icing.

"How'd you know I've been missing her?"

"Uh..." Dareth frowned at Lloyd's question, then flashed a grin. "The brown ninja knows _everything._"

* * *

**Okay, Bl00dR4v3n here. So this is a Dareth-Centered one shot requested by someone near and dear to my heart****. So this is for _you_ Dad!**

* * *

**I've never done much with the brown ninja's character, and I haven't written comedy in a while... But I hope ya'll enjoyed it regardles**

**.****This is just a one shot with no continuation in mind. So thank very much for Tuning in****-R4v3n out. **


End file.
